Conventional techniques for obtaining an image of a fingerprint apply ink to a finger and then gently roll the inked finger on a piece of paper. The fingerprint image that appears on the paper is a planar representation of a non-planar object. Images produced by such conventional techniques often distort the true finger print, because the rolling process is difficult to execute, and because skin and sub-dermal fat has a tendency to bunch up on the trailing edge of the fingerprint.
More recently, systems for obtaining fingerprint images electronically have been made available. In some such systems, the image is constructed by means of optical scanning. In such optical scanning systems, the finger is placed on a platen and a image is captured. The edges of the finger not in flat contact with the imaging surface platen are reconstructed by progressively stretching the image of the vertical surfaces to extend their projected image out to simulate a rolled impression scanning system. Such stretching and extending of the images introduces in accuracies.
Embodiments of the invention described herein may obtain an image without using paper and ink and without stretching or extending electronic images. In embodiments of the invention, an energy transducer is moved around a portion of a hand, such as a finger, to collect information about the finger that can be used to generate an image without distortion, parallax effects or the use of any image stretching techniques.